'Introvert' climber Oceana Mackenzie on a big year of learning
The 2023 season proved a rollercoaster ride for the Australian sport climber but each challenge provided a learning experience to take forward into what Oceana Mackenzie hopes will be a second Olympic Games appearance.
"Japan, Republic of Korea, USA, Czechia, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France..."
The flag emojis of all these nations lined up one after the other on Oceana Mackenzie's Instagram caption posted in April 2023 alongside a photo of the woman herself at Melbourne airport.
The icons represented the countries the Australian was soon to visit as part of the IFSC Sport Climbing World Cup series, which also incorporated the World Championships in Bern mid-season.
The Worlds also offered a total of ten Olympic qualification spots for sport climbing for Paris 2024 – three each for men and women in the combined boulder & lead event and two each for the winners and runners-up in the speed discipline.
Not quite at the World podium level yet, the 21-year-old nevertheless finished seventh in Switzerland in her specialist event, bouldering.
The discipline features a quartet of four-metre-high walls with different hand and foot-hold settings on each, with the athlete who solves the most 'problems' in the lowest number of attempts receiving the most points.
For Paris 2024, the points from this discipline will be added to the lead climbing result, in which athletes secured by a rope, progress up a 15-metre-tall wall, on an overhanging route with a six-minute time limit. The higher the climb, the more points gained.
The speed event, in which athletes attempt to reach the top of a 15-metre wall as quickly as possible, is a separate event in Paris, as opposed to the combination of all three at the sport's debut at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
A second chance for the region's climbers to obtain a quota for the Games in France comes courtesy of the IFSC Oceania Qualifier from the 24-26 November in which the highest-placed athlete per gender will secure one quota place.
The continental series event, which incorporates nations from Australia, New Zealand and Guam, takes place in Melbourne and gives Mackenzie the chance to qualify for a second Olympic Games, with the added spice of doing so in front of a raucous home crowd.
Finishing the competitive season with a quota for Paris would be quite the reward for a confidence-building 2023 series that has provided a huge learning curve for the Tokyo 2020 Olympian.
* As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
* Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.
Oceana Mackenzie's teen dream
Just a teenager at the Olympic Games in Japan, the German-born climber who moved to Queensland with her family at just a few months old before they headed to Melbourne five years later, has been on quite the learning curve since the sport's Olympic debut, with 2023 particularly proving a rollercoaster.
Weeks before the flight out to the first competition of the year, Mackenzie revealed doubts and concerns around the balance between competitiveness and enjoyment of the sport leading up to the departure.
"I’m consistently worrying when I’m at training, trying to find the balance of working on things that make me a better competitor and having fun and trying to not take training so seriously," she posted.
"I know for myself when I’m climbing with friends, laughing having a good time progression just happens. But it’s easy to fall into a mindset where every session has to be “hard” and challenge me lots."
Access to psychologists via a scholarship awarded by the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship and Mentoring Program in 2022 has helped with this aspect of her sport, as well as the ability to perform on stage despite being a self-confessed "introvert".
Focusing on the parts she enjoys away from the sport plays a part in managing her emotions.
"I love international competitions even still. Obviously, everyone's focused on their own climbing and want to do their best but everybody's still really friendly and encouraging, which is really nice."
Enjoying travelling to different parts of the world is also key, with Wujiang one favoured location. "So nice traveling to China after so long, I love the culture, food, people and city there😍 can’t wait to go back!"
But her real love of the sport comes from its puzzle-solving aspect, which suits her personality.
"I'm a very competitive person, I love solving problems," she said in a video of her favoured discipline of bouldering.
"I'm quite an introvert myself so solving problems is kind of my thing and with elite sport, especially in climbing, it's what you have to do, and I really love the challenge of that."
Season's greeting for Oceana Mackenzie
There's only a fleeting reference to the first World Cup of the season, in Hachioji, Japan in which Mackenzie finished 35th in the bouldering competition. A post after the second meet of the season, in Seoul, Republic of Korea in which she came 13th, stated: "Even though my performance in Seoul was good, and a big improvement from Hachiōji, I’m not 💯 satisfied..."
Citing a few small errors in qualies and semifinals, Mackenzie could nevertheless see strengths to build on and "refine" before the next competition in Salt Lake City.
A 12th place finish in the US despite suffering from jetlag and a nasty cold a few days before the competition started built another layer of confidence while a seventh place in Prague was succinctly reviewed as, "I had fun, I’m proud, let’s keep it up!".
Eleventh place in Brixen in early June and Mackenzie reflected: "Each comp making improvements feels pretty good! So many things to be proud of recently. Also just feeling so grateful to be doing what I’m doing with amazing people surrounding me."
Those amazing people include fellow climbers Ayala Kerem from Israel, Republic of Korea's Seo Chae-hyun, Natalia Grossman of USA, Austria's Johanna Färber and Serbia's Staša Gejo, who Mackenzie name checks as making this competition particularly fun and enjoyable. An important aspect of keeping happy when so far from home, especially when you're one of five sisters.
By the World Championships in Bern in June, things were coming together nicely.
"My confidence was way higher this year, it seemed to just get easier and easier to believe in my ability in each comp," she wrote. However, doubts started to creep in again ahead of the Worlds, which she described as the "hardest one for me mentally".
Despite a disappointing lead qualification round, and feeling like she "couldn’t enjoy boulder qualies either", Mackenzie nevertheless was happy with how she handled the struggle. "I’m really proud of how I managed to change my mindset and how I performed in boulder semis, it was a battle of the 🧠."
Mind over matter
That battle of the mind continued back in Australia, when, a few weeks ahead of the Olympic qualifying event, Mackenzie headed outdoors to the rock face on a trip to the Grampians, a national park with dazzling waterfalls, abundant wildlife and wildflowers, and a wealth of Aboriginal rock art sites.
But challenging thoughts emerged again: "Ever since I started climbing outside I usually sent something “hard” to tell people about when I got home.
"So recently when I’ve had trips where I haven’t felt like trying hard or just not really in the mood to project I got really anxious and disappointed with myself. I’ve found it very tricky to go outside without expectation and “success”.
"It’s also easy for me to get caught up in climbing outside for the development of my comp climbing. I’m now making it my goal to smile every time I fall off boulders outside," she wrote.
That battle between enjoyment of her sport and training hard is one she's still wrestling with, but her love of competing is clear, posting after the World Championships:
"7th in the world for boulder this year❤️🔥
So many lessons each comp.
So much fun this season.
So much to improve on.
So much confidence gained.
Such a good year already and so much more ahead🥳"
Including, she hopes, qualification for her second Olympic Games.